Zphr's BoarMage ready to kill + Encounter Grounds :)

Zphr's übercool new Boarman Mage model is ready to rock the battlegrounds of jcrpg! It's completely suitable for a great battle - shooting fire sparks at you if you don't put them to sleep with your Fumes Of Twilight alchemy spell. :D

Another big change has been invented! Discussing encounter visualization with Zphr, we ended up with the idea to introduce Encounter Grounds. The tiled labyrinths and cities where you'll be walking around won't be enough empty and clear space for a goodly visible scenario, so it's a reasonable solution to have a separate 'walked zone' dependent Encounter scenario. Your view will be switched to a 'battle' ground like in many other classic games you were - but still you won't walk on that scene either, we still have the first person view and 'battle line' philosophy of Wizardry 7 and predecessor, instead of the 2d walk-around of other games like the Gold Box series AD&D game. The encounter scenario generated will depend on your actually walked ground's climate/economic zone. I've added a test screenshot with the jungle Encounter Grounds AND the BoarMage. Enjoy! :)

Meanwhile there's now a camera changing method too, in encounter mode, the camera will switch to the actually acting unit and after act the target unit. Cool, isn't it?

90% ready Skill Act Form architecture - skill/spell tree to design!

Well, the good thing is a really big part of the Skill Act Form system (at least for Turn act phase) is quite ready! This means that we have:

• basic impact form to decrease or increase all kind of points with the given act form - so you can create normal spells or combat attack forms that decrease stamina or health etc.
  
• weapons / ammunitions with BonusSkillActForms for spell and such effects - for creating artifacts (of course with attribute/resistance bonus modifiers too if you want that)
  
• armors body part dependent, that can also contain bonus Resistances/Attributes for enchantment
• State effects - so you can create long time effects for spells like sleep, poison, an elemental shield, long term burning spells etc.
• act forms can specify contra attributes/resistances that help the attacked resist them
• usable objects with bonus act forms - to create potions, kits etc. even with long term effects (with the help of the new State effects)

So basically it's time to create the different State Effects (like I've already added Sleep, ElementalResistance, PhysicalResistance), the system of spells and combat forms, a long list of artifacts, armors, potions and the like. Nice, isn't it? And the prettiest thing is - this all works well with the combat system - although AI is lacking a refined choice algorithm yet, it will bash you with the most powerful skill it has at hand. :D (Not that it won't prove efficient - you can easily die! ;-) ) But that AI decision mechanism too will change soon!

Inventory and BodyParts in the works

Equipping/unequipping armor to a certain bodypart is now working. Also there's now Body part and Body definitions for different creatures, so they may have different Body build-up. Body parts like legs, torso etc. define their size and criticality upon injury. In a combat chance of body part hit will be based on size of a body part. The criticality of injury is also defined by body part. A lot of inventory thing has been developed, working Give, Drop, Attach (ammo type to a weapon). There's even a draft Inventory Object Detail page to see details about an item.

Also party order can be changed now so the lineup in a combat can be different. It can be done by pressing F5 on the Party Character Order window. A lot of small fixes, and a memory optimization for UI text generation were done (it was eating away a huge amount of memory, I've added caching for font quads now). Steady progress for now, I think! :D

First Particle Effect, EntityMemberState (HP,SP,MP and such) + many updates

Well, we're progressing at steam power level, my RPG-fan friends! We already have a thing we can proudly call a progressing and functional combat. You can die, you can have a Game Over, you can run out of Stamina so you have to wait, or run out of Mana so you can't cast spells. Yes, we have now an extensible effect program thing for the Skill Act Forms (spells, shots etc.) that uses J3DMovingEngine to handle jME based particle effects! Check the screenshot.

Also there's now a Camping button. If you press button 'C' in normal mode you switch to a camping mode with quicker passing time, Interception switched off, replenishing points like health and stamina (until you press C again or an AI initiated encounter surprises you at the start of the turn). The list of new things is not finished yet: we've just introduced Resistance values against skill act form impacts: Pierce, Bludgeon, Chemicals, Cold, Fire and Mental resistance for now! A new font is also replacing simple Verdana for a better more RPGish typography.

Well, yeah, we have now Experience Points as well, and it is accumulated upon each use of a skill! If you can get enough now you can even do a leveling of you experienced character! It's done with the help of the new shiny Character Leveling Window where you can pump some attribute points (which can raise Health, Mana, Stamina, Sanity, Moral points as well) and some skill points - which may lead to addition of new Skill Act Forms to you character if you've hit the right skill level needed for them.

Zphr is still working heavily on new 3D contents for jcrpg. The Boarman Thug is mostly complete with pain and death animation! He's working on a Boarman Mage currently. You've a more complete shot here about the tough thugs!

Much progress, working ahead to version 0.1 steadily. So loyal jcrpg people, get on and do some trumpeting around about jcrpg on forums you are at. We're about to get some serious innovated classic-RPG fun here! :D

Working on EncounterLogic Turn Act Phase playback

We're continuing the accentuated work on turn act phase! Several new things designed to make it a working system. Just to mention a few: added multiple animation type definition for MovingModels, boosted the EncounterLogic with a real turn plan listing choices that units and player made ordered by the EvaluatorBase speed evaluator code. Success of a given skill use is now calculated by EvaluatorBase too. Another new thing is Impact and ImpactUnit that is calculated by EvaluatorBase - modifies actor's points and target's points (like health, stamina) on success.

Based on results different sounds and animations (etc. attack, pain) are played now when available for the model/skill. It's starting to round up well, although this part just needs tones of work as you can imagine. Ugh, not even mentioning the particle system and such that will be needed for spell effects. Lots of work ahead. But it's FUN! Watching the enemy attacking and struggling when hit by player's party members - a visual turn based game logic is (will be) just right before the nose of player. :D

Check the screenshot for a preview - also a faint glimpse at Zphr's brand new fantastically looking animated boarman thugs (modeled in Blender again) and the text box in the bottom shows combat messages of the previous round... Thanks Zphr for doing a great-great job with the boarmen! I will post more about the boarmen when it will be more complete.

All in SVN!

Combat System

A few weeks ago I've posted about races and classes, based on some comments that I didn't want to remain in the darkness of the comment pages...the same now with the combat system discussion in yesterday's post's comments:

Dragonbait: "Eye of the Beholder trilogy was great with the exception of having to be quick with the mouse, and also be mouse click trigger happy. No future hand/finger clicking medical problems please.

Best to be able to use the keyboard for all functions and to be able to take your time when needed. Though while still having the ability to use the mouse would be nice.

Keeping that in mind it still would be nice to have some "time element" to it much like Bard's Tale II when you have to finish a specific quest or puzzle within a certain time, like having Hit Points Drop while figuring out a puzzle etc.

Also having the more tougher monsters come out during the night hours is a must."

I like the ideas found in DB's comment! Although yesterday mentioned "Time" element was primarily meant on the changing weather/light conditions, but it was the right comment on which I could start to write down my ideas about combat system and time relation:

Me: "First of all: the combat system that I intend to implement firstly (there may be various other combat systems implemented in jcrpg, as this is mainly a framework, so more then one combat systems may be contained in it), so what I intend to implement is mainly the legacy of Wizardry 7 and with your (blog readers' commenting - Paul) precious advice other games like Devil Whiskey and Bard's Tale (in which I am not too professional, although I played both of them to a certain extent, Wiz 7 is the one which I played over more then once.)

For those who don't know it, it is basically a turn based - tell what you want to do in advance (stateful programmed automaton like) combat system. So place for strategies, different variations. :-)

One more thing that I want to add surely is the way to play the game through without actually the need to kill anyone. There will be good alternatives, instead of killing one you may make him unable to fight, throw him in jail, or use your diplomatic/thief skills etc."